UBF MINISTRY HISTORY

The University Bible Fellowship was founded on September 1, 1961, in South Korea in the midst of national turmoil following a nation-wide demonstration and coup d'etat of the previous year. Korean college students, the future leaders of their country, fell into deep despair due to social instability and the deteriorating value-system of their society. In 1955, the Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church sent 25-year-old volunteer Sarah Barry to help this war-devastated country. Miss Barry opened a Student Center in downtown Kwangju in an effort to reach students with the gospel. She taught English classes using the English Bible. The Korean students were eager to learn English and these classes became very popular. The First Presbyterian Church joined with her work and, having graduated from a Presbyterian seminary, Dr. Samuel Lee was called in to act as pastor for the Student Center.

Dr. Lee and Miss Barry both saw the sorry condition of Korean college students who wandered aimlessly after their lectures. They were very concerned and began to pray for these students who were like sheep without a shepherd. They shared a common belief that the best way to help Korea and the world was to plant the Word of God in the hearts of college students so that they would have faith in God and a hope for the future. Through the Bible studies, a small group of students came to put their faith in Christ Jesus. These students met together regularly with Dr. Lee and Miss Barry to pray for the rest of the students on their campus. This small prayer council was the beginning of UBF.

One of the students who attended the Bible study faithfully was John Jun, a pre-med student. As he studied the Bible, God moved his heart to start a small group Bible study on campus and invited his classmates to join. Many students were thirsty for the Word of God. Soon many such small Bible study groups sprang up. By the end of the school year, there were over 80 group Bible studies meeting at the two universities in Kwangju. The leaders of these Bible studies were trained and discipled by Dr. Lee and Miss Barry on a personal basis.

The original prayer council grew in number and maturity. They prayed for the campus, for growing leaders, for new students, and for world missions. But no one believed that Koreans could be missionaries. They were too poor. Everyone thought that missionaries had to have lots of money to fund their work. But through further Bible study they came to realize that Jesus had commanded His disciples to be disciple-makers -- to go to all nations and preach the gospel to all people (Matt 28:19-20). So in 1964, God called Han Ok Kim to go Cheju University on Cheju Island in the direction of Southeast Asia. After studying how Jesus fed the 5,000 with only five loaves and two small fish (John 6), the core of leaders prayed to support her by faith. Students gave sacrificially. One student sold his blood to the blood bank; others sold books; some sold peanuts or shined shoes in the train station. With this move of faith, new centers began to spring up. After the Cheju Center, Bible centers were established at the universities of Chunju, Taejon, Taegu, and finally in 1966, a center was established in the capital city Seoul.

In Seoul, Dr. Lee and Miss Barry learned some principles of daily personal Bible study from Scripture Union, a British missionary organization. Dr. Lee began the task of writing short daily devotional messages on the entire Bible in addition to writing study material on the book of Genesis. These materials were published and put to use by many UBF members and churches. With these materials, Dr. Lee and Miss Barry encouraged students to spend quiet, thoughtful times in personal Bible study and prayer each morning and taught them to write testimonies delineating what they learned in personal application from the Word of God. As the work grew, they organized into campus fellowships and had fellowship meetings at the Bible center. They also held vacation Bible schools during school breaks and holidays. Their meetings often began with students praying together in pairs. After hearing a brief message and sharing testimonies with each other, the meetings would conclude with more two-by-two prayer. Believing prayer was the secret of UBF’s early success.

Students and graduates began to leave Korea to study and work in West Germany and the USA. Dr. Lee visited them frequently to encourage and support their lay missionary work. In 1968, three Taejon UBF graduate nurses went to Germany on a three-year work contract. Dr. Lee invited them to Seoul for a week-long missionary training seminar prior to their departure so they could be sent as self-supporting missionaries. Four more joined them shortly. God accepted this small offering and today there are many strong German leaders in UBF and nearly a dozen fruitful Bible centers in Germany.

Just as Apostle Paul had wanted to go to Rome as a base for pioneering the world, Dr. Lee, Miss Barry, and the Korean shepherds prayed to establish UBF in America. In 1970, the first Korean missionaries to America arrived in New York. The following year, the students in Korea received a vision to pray for 200 American students to attend a summer Bible conference at Niagara Falls by 1981. God heard their prayers and in 1981, marking the 20th anniversary of UBF, more than 300 American students attended the historic Niagara Falls Summer Bible Conference. In 1977, UBF moved its headquarters from Seoul, South Korea to Chicago, Illinois, USA.

For the first time, Korean missionaries began to ‘fish’ students for one-to-one Bible study at Northwestern University. Six of them lived together in a one-room apartment in Evanston near the campus. They had no furniture, but slept on mattresses which could be stored in the closets, thus converting their apartment into a Center. Together they prayed, struggled, and served hundreds of NU students with Korean food and the word of God.

The focus on world mission remained. In Korea in 1970, members of UBF received mimeographed lists of the names of 145 countries of the world with their capitals and pertinent information. They got down on our knees every night and everyone prayed for these countries and their people. They couldn't even pronounce some of the names. But God saw their struggle and heard their prayers. Now, more than 40 years later, there are over 1,500 UBF missionaries with chapters in 87 countries worldwide dedicated to the work of raising students to become leaders, exemplary Christians, and disciples of Jesus Christ.

On January 8, 2002, God called Dr. Samuel Lee home to the kingdom of God. Missionary Sarah Barry now serves as the director of UBF, International. They were best friends in Jesus for over 40 years.